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This podcast is a production of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas, USA. Watermark exists to be and make more fully devoted followers of Christ, looking to God's Word as our only authority, conscience and guide.
Good morning, Watermark. How are we doing? It is Every Generation July, and we are so glad to have kids and families in the room. If we haven't met before, my name is Jonathan Linder. I'm a Community Director here on staff. I have littles of my own. I just want to give you a quick encouragement and reminder if you're in the audience.
This room is a family; it's not an airplane, so if you have kids in the room, we're excited that they're here. I want to relieve any potential stress or fear you might have. At the 4:00 p.m., you'll see my daughter running in between the aisles, I'm sure. We are really, really glad you are here with us this morning.
The picture I hope you have in your head with me this morning is that we're going to be going on a journey. That's really what I want to be taking you on this morning: a journey together. On this journey, we're going to be looking for one specific thing, but before I tell you what that one specific thing is, I want to ask this question: How hard would it be for you to pack a bag if you had no idea where you were going, what you were doing, or how long you were going to be gone for?
How hard would it be for you to pack a bag if you knew no details about where you were going? Well, that is exactly what I asked my 3-1/2-year-old daughter Lucy to do just the other day, and here is a video of her response.
\[Video\]
**Jonathan:** Okay, Lucy. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to pack your backpack for a long trip. Okay? Can you do that for me?
**Lucy:** For what?
**Jonathan:** I want you to pack your backpack for a long trip.
**Lucy:** What long trip?
**Jonathan:** I can't tell you. I can't tell you where we're going or what we're doing or what you need to pack, but I just need you to pack everything you might need for a long trip.
**Lucy:** I need one of my ponies. I'll just pick that pony. There we go. And take this for my sleepover. Um, one second. I'm going to just get my ChapStick.
\[End of video\]
**Jonathan:** I love my daughter, but just to be clear, as a review, these are the things we ended up with. We ended up with a baby and a little box that plays stories. She went into the kitchen. We did get also some Trader Joe's gummies, and we did end up with her ChapStick. So, she has everything she needs for life and godliness and for a trip to survive for many, many days.
We were going to Oklahoma with our family, and if that was all she packed, obviously, she would not have all she needed for that trip. I start there this morning because, again, I want you to think about this idea that we are going on a journey together. Maybe some of you have heard the phrase before, but there's even a bigger journey that we are all on in life, the journey of life. From our first day here on earth to the last day here on earth, we are on a journey.
There are a lot of questions I think we ask ourselves or that influence how we live along the way. What's our point of being here? Who are we to follow? What are we to do? What's our purpose or our identity? There are so many questions that inform how we live. I really want to get at the idea this morning that there's one thing you need to have more than anything else, one thing we must seek and find, and that thing is wisdom. Wisdom is what we're going to be talking about this morning.
When you're 3-1/2, it's really sweet and silly to pack a baby, gummies, and ChapStick, thinking that's all you need in life in order to survive and thrive, but the older we get, the implications only get bigger and greater and greater. If you were to come here today and say, "Man, the most important thing in my life is my relationship, my money, my possessions, my grades, my identity in sports," or whatever it might be for you… If you think your life is found in any of those things, it's a miss.
So, this morning, I hope we go on this journey together, that we look and see that wisdom is the one thing you need in this life, and it is the main theme that runs throughout the book of Proverbs. If you have a Bible, you can turn there with me. We're going to be jumping into our series in _Year of the Word_ and talking about wisdom. _Wisdom_ really means truth applied.
Our kids' ministry has a definition for _wisdom_, so, kids, I would love your help this morning in reading this definition. If we can all do this together, that would be amazing. "_Wisdom_ means applying God's truth to my life." That is what wisdom means. There's this emphasis in wisdom. It's not just knowledge, but it's actually the application of knowledge, which is different than knowledge itself, because, again, this implies action and ownership.
So, as we go on this journey, I think wisdom has the biggest influence on where we go, what we pack, and how we act along the way. Really, the question we have to ask ourselves is…_Who or what is our guide?_ Who or what is influencing what we pack, how we live, and how we act along the way?
This morning, as we look at the book of Proverbs, we're going to jump around to a couple of different places, but we're going to focus on that main theme of wisdom. Before I do this, I'd love to ask you to stop and pray with me. This is something we do every Sunday together. You're welcome to pray with your family or individually, but if you would, bow your heads.
Would you just take a moment and specifically pray for your own heart that wisdom would penetrate deeply into your heart this morning? Would you take a second and pray for everyone else in the room, for anyone who's coming in here this morning who does not know the person of Jesus? Lastly, would you pray for my heart? Would the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing, and would you see through me and the cross of Christ more clearly.
Lord, we're grateful for this opportunity to learn about wisdom, that the perfect embodiment of wisdom is your Son Jesus. Would we see him more clearly. Would wisdom influence our lives this morning. We pray all these things in your name, amen.
All right. To give you an outline of where we are headed on this journey, there are going to be three specific questions that inform and influence where we go, and they are going to be behind me on the screen. First, we're going to ask the question…_Where does wisdom start?_ Secondly…_Where do you find wisdom?_ And thirdly…_Where does wisdom lead?_
We're going to start in the book of Proverbs. Where does the book itself start? Then we'll talk about where wisdom starts. The book of Proverbs was primarily written by a king of the nation of Israel. There was this king whose name was David. David was a great king. He's the guy who killed Goliath. We know a lot of famous stories about David.
David had a son, and his son's name was Solomon. It says in 1 Kings, chapter 4, that Solomon was the wisest person on earth. God gave him an abundance of wisdom and understanding more than anyone else who has ever lived on this earth. Solomon then writes the book of Proverbs with the intent to drive toward one main idea: finding and applying godly wisdom to our lives.
So, Solomon writes out wisdom principles or probabilities. These things are not promises. This is how our lives are designed to flourish in our relationships and how we interact with one another and in our own hearts, but they're not necessarily promises, meaning that if we follow them, every single time it will turn out exactly how it is described in Scripture, but these should influence and inform our lives as wisdom principles, not as promises.
The first five verses of the book lay out an outline for the rest of the book, so we can start reading in Proverbs 1:1. It says, **"The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth—let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance…"** So, let us seek to increase in learning and obtaining guidance this morning on our journey.
1\. _Where does wisdom start?_ We just read the first five verses of chapter 1, and that gives us an outline for the book, but if we look down a few verses later, we see the main idea of the book of Proverbs in one verse. That's Proverbs 1:7. It says, **"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction."**
I want to focus on two specific words here. The first one I want us to look at is that word _beginning_. This is the same Hebrew word that means the start, so you could read this as "The fear of the Lord is the start of knowledge." We could spend an entire message talking about the fear of the Lord, but the second word I want us to focus on is that word _knowledge_.
The word _knowledge_ here does mean wisdom, but it actually means so much more than wisdom. It has its root in the Hebrew word _yada_. Can I just get everyone this morning to say that word with me? _Yada_. Amazing. This might sound initially like when we hear someone talking all the time and we sometimes say, "All I'm hearing is them go 'Yada, yada, yada, yada.'" That's not what we're talking about. Maybe that's what you're hearing from me. Hopefully not.
We're going to be talking about the Hebrew word _yada_, which actually means to know. It really is getting at knowledge through experience. It's really about a relationship. Meaning, the beginning of wisdom is actually in a relationship. Rightly fearing the Lord reveals the difference between _positional_ authority and _relational_ authority.
Here's what I mean. So many other religions out there are based solely in positional authority. God is God. He has created you, and he has given you this set of rules to live by, so you have to follow them, and if you follow them perfectly, then you'll make it into eternity or your life will be determined by how well you live by them.
While that's partially true in Christianity… God _is_ God. He's our Creator. He's the Creator of the universe. He _does_ have positional authority, but here's the thing: positional authority without relationship leads to performance-based acceptance. You must perform in order to earn and achieve something. This is the biggest difference in Christianity. We're saved by grace through faith alone, not by our works.
I want to illustrate it these two different ways. I remember when I was in college, I was driving up through Arkansas to head to a camp for the summer. I was driving along the road and driving through one of those really small Arkansas towns that you don't actually realize or know is a town, but the speed limit changes from 70 miles an hour to 45 miles an hour just like _that_, and there's a cop sitting there waiting for you in a speed trap. I got trapped.
So, I was driving down the road, and I got pulled over. I was doing 60, or something, in a 45. The cop comes up to my window. I hand him my license and registration. He writes me a ticket, hands it back to me, and I go on my way. A great and respectful interaction. Right? I was breaking the law. I deserved a ticket. I earned it. He gave it to me. He didn't know me. I didn't know him. He wasn't trying to get to know me. Not in a rude way, but he was just doing his job. I broke the law, and I earned a ticket.
Now contrast that and my relationship with that police officer to a few weeks ago. I came home from a trip, and my wife and I had had a conflict when I got home. We were really missing on one specific conversation that we kept trying to have over and over and over again. We came back to this thing two or three different times.
We'd take a break, come back together, and we just weren't seeing eye to eye. I was struggling to feel seen and understood in the ways that she had made me feel unloved, and she was feeling the exact same way. Proverbs 18:2 says, **"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion."** That's where I found myself.
So, one night, I called a guy in my Community Group. I'm talking through the entire situation with him for about 30 minutes, and for 20 of those minutes I'm laying out "Hey, here's what happened. Here are the conversations we're having. Here is where we continually keep missing." He listened, and he cared for me, and he empathized, and he loved me.
At the end of our conversation, he said this to me. He said, "Jonathan, I think my one challenge for you would be that, lately, in conversations like this one, it has felt like you have needed to be right or that Linen must see it from your perspective." Who wants to hear that? Here's the thing: I desperately needed that.
There's a radical difference between my relationship with that police officer and this man in my Community Group who knows me, loves me, listened to me, and gave me encouragement and challenge that I needed to hear. Proverbs 9:8 says, "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you forever."
The difference with the police officer is that I listen and obey so that it will go well for me, so that I do not get in trouble. I follow this set of rules. But in this friendship and in my marriage… Those relationships are based out of deep love, care, and trust, so my behavior is motivated by a relationship rooted and grounded in love. This is the gospel. This is the Proverbs in action in our lives. We serve a God that the basis of his wisdom is actually in relationship with us.
I use those two illustrations because we can read through Proverbs 1:7 and go, "You know what? God is just like a police officer. He has given me 31 chapters in this book, and I just need to live these things out perfectly. I need to follow each and every one of them and flip through them daily, and if I don't, then God is waiting for me right there in the speed trap, and he's going to go, 'I got you.'" That's just not true.
He has given us his Word so that we might experience flourishing and life in it, but he does it through relationship with us. It's not performance-based acceptance; it is acceptance-based performance. That's why the beginning of wisdom itself is actually in a relationship. See, wisdom starts in relationship with the Lord. That's the beginning of wisdom. It starts in relationship with the Lord. But how do we find this? How do we grow in it? What should we be looking for along the way? That leads us to our second question.
2\. _Where do you find wisdom?_ Flip over one chapter in the book of Proverbs, and we'll start reading in verse 1 of chapter 2. Solomon writes:
**"My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God."**
Solomon says here, "If you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure, you'll understand and find it." He's implying that wisdom is more valuable than money, stuff, or anything else the world has to offer, but you have to look for it. You have to desire it. You have to be willing to set aside everything else that the world goes, "No, no, _this_ is where life is found," and you have to reject that and go "I'm going to focus and give all my attention in life to seeing God clearly."
Proverbs 8:35 says, **"For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord…"** "Whoever finds me finds life." In order to find wisdom, you have to look in the right place. I think of a children's book I used to read when I was a kid. Has anybody in here ever read _Where's Waldo?_ A few of you. Okay. This book was always at doctors' and dentists' offices when I was growing up. I don't know why. Maybe they wanted to distract you before what was coming on the other side of that door.
I would sit and read these _Where's Waldo?_ books. The whole point of these books is each and every page is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of distractions. It's full of clutter and things going on. On _this_ page we have Waldo going to the fair. There are so many things going on on this page, and it's so hard to find him. In some ways, this can be a picture for how you and I look for wisdom today.
The whole point is that we find Waldo, but you could spend hours getting lost in all of the other things happening and go, "Okay. Well, there's a fun game over here in the corner. The goal is to win tickets and things, to get stuff, so that's what I'm going to give my life to." Or "There's a group of guys lifting weights here, so I'm going to go all in on my image, identity, or social media platform."
"Man, there are fun rides and things and entertainment, so I'm going to give my life to _that_," or "Man, it looks like there are a ton of relationships and people going on dates, so I might give my life to _that_." There are just a lot of things going on in our lives that take our time, energy, and attention, and it's easy to lose track of the whole point.
I spent probably 30 minutes in this book last night, and in all honesty, I Googled it, but I found Waldo. I cheated. I hate to say that, but I did. I found Waldo. He's right _here_ hiding in plain sight. He's there on every single page. No matter how hard you look and try, Waldo is there every single time. I think that's a picture of us. We can get caught up in looking at all of these other things and miss the whole point of the journey.
Different than Waldo, God has not made himself hidden. He has actually revealed himself to us. He has given us his Word that has been preserved for hundreds of years and generation to generation that we might know him, experience him, read it, and learn about him. We can see him. When we walk outside, we can perceive him in nature. We see the amazing creation of the universe. We see him in the gift and the life of children.
He has not hidden himself from us. He's all around us, and you can abundantly know him, but you have to fight against all of the distractions of the world and look. Jeremiah 29:13 says, **"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."** Are you willing to surrender your heart from all of the other distractions and things that are begging for your life? Paul writes in Colossians 2:1:
**"For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."**
Think about that reality. Just pay attention to verse 3 with me. Paul says, "In Christ are all treasures," meaning, there's nothing missing outside of him. These are the riches we're talking about in Proverbs 2. There's all wisdom, godly living. Jesus is the perfect embodiment of wisdom in the Proverbs. And knowledge…truth, understanding, and relationship.
So, if Christ is all of these things, how do we gain him? Paul answers that question. A few verses later, in verse 6, he says, **"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."** "Just as you have received Christ, so walk in him." This is abiding with Jesus, remaining connected to him, doing everything with him, following him.
A few weeks ago, I went on my first trip to Colorado. I'd never seen a mountain before. By show of hands, who in this room has been to Colorado before? Amazing. All of you, kids included, that's great. I had never been. So, I took my first trip to Colorado. I had never seen a mountain, and here's my hot take. Please don't get upset with me. Mountains are amazing. They're beautiful, but I just don't know if I'm a hiking guy.
You know, there's this really, really tall mountain, and for me, if you can drive up that mountain in a car or an ATV or a UTV, I'm taking that 10 out of 10 times before I'm walking five miles uphill, sucking wind because I'm not acclimated to the 13,000 feet that I'm at. I'm driving up there, and I'm experiencing the same view that _you_ are. I just get to the top a lot faster. That's my thing, and it's okay if you're not there. You can love hiking, and we can… Different gifts. That's great.
Here's the thing I would tell you. We did just that on this trip. We took these little side-by-sides up this mountain. We were led by a guy on our staff, John McGee. He took a group of pastors to Colorado. So, we got on these side-by-sides, and we're driving up this mountain. I'll tell you, as we're going along, I'm kind of like, "Man! This is a lot of freedom we've been given." They just kind of toss you the keys, and you drive on the side of a mountain.
I have a picture here. We're just going along, and I'm like, "Man, there are some steep drop-offs. Are there any guardrails? What's going on here? I guess it's fine." A few times, we were just a pebble away from sliding off the side of this thing. So, I kept reminding John and Luke, the guy driving the ATV next to me… I'm like, "Hey, I've got two kids. I'm supposed to be home on Friday. I just need you to know that."
But we're going along, and then we kind of pause at one point. John gets out of his little side-by-side and kind of looks at the group of all of us, and he's like, "Hey, this has been really fun, but just so you guys know, we're about to go up even higher. It's going to be a little bit sketchier, so if you're a little afraid of heights or getting a little in your head, you're welcome to jump out right here and wait for us to come back down."
I look around, and I'm like, "So, is anybody going to hang back with me? No one? Okay." I mean, honestly, was I afraid of heights? Absolutely. Was I going to get out and sit on a tree stump by myself while everybody drove up the mountain? Absolutely not. So, I get in the side-by-side, and we go up this mountain. It gets even steeper and sketchier and crazier along the way, but we made it.
We followed John. He was our guide. I trusted him. We followed his little thing all the way up to the top of this mountain, and then we got to the top, and this is what I saw. I looked out, and you got to see beautiful mountains in every direction you looked, to see and experience God's creation. It was amazing for a guy who had never seen a mountain in 27 years of his life to drive up a mountain and see that.
In some ways, this is a picture for us of abiding with Jesus. He's going, "Hey, will you follow me? I have a better way. Take the narrow road. It's worth it." Psalm 19:7 says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing for our souls." He's saying, "If you walk in me and with me, I've created and ordered your life that it flourishes in relationship with me. I'm the primary purpose of what you were created for, of the journey you're on.
I'm the only thing you need to experience true joy in life. These mountains are just a small glimpse of my glory and my love for you. You get to see and perceive me in nature, but there's something far, far greater." Just like I put all my trust and faith in John to go up this mountain, God is going, "Put your trust and faith in me. There's a better way. It's worth it. I promise it's worth it."
Jesus is not just our guide who's in front of us, a few steps ahead; he's actually right next to us. He's in us, and he wants to walk with you. So, just as you have received Christ, would you walk in him? Galatians 5:16 says, "For I say, if you walk by the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh." Wisdom is found ultimately in walking with the Lord. So, if we know where it starts and where to find it, this is the last question we have to ask ourselves.
3\. _What does this ultimately lead to?_ What does it produce in us? If we look back at Paul's letter to the Colossians, he writes about this idea of sanctification. It produces sanctification in us. This is how God grows us and changes us from the inside through his Son to look more like his Son. Paul writes in Colossians 1:9:
**"And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…"**
So, what does walking with God lead to? It leads to us bearing fruit, looking more like Christ, increasing in our knowledge and wisdom and seeing him more clearly. This is what we see, the different paths laid out in Proverbs. Proverbs 14:12 says, "There's a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death."
If you contrast that with the man or woman who's soft and surrendered, who's going, "God, my life is all yours…" Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is like streams of water in the hands of the Lord, and he guides it wherever he pleases." "I'm not in control. _You_ are. I'm surrendered. You tell me where. You tell me what. I'm living for you."
Wisdom ultimately leads to transformation. Relationship with the Lord and walking with him leads to transformation. Wisdom leads to being transformed by the Lord. Some of the main themes we see throughout the book of Proverbs are how God, through wisdom, changes our lives and is seeking to change the way we use our tongues and how we interact with other people in our relationships, and we breathe life into them with the power of our tongues.
It changes the way we work with integrity, striving for excellence, because it honors God and inspires the hearts of men; the way we steward our money, because it's not ours; our self-control and emotions when we're wronged or hurt by someone; our purity and faithfulness, what we look at and consume; our relationships in community, how we do life with one another, how we handle correction or challenge from others. It influences all of these areas.
Wisdom changes everything, because Jesus changes everything in us. It ultimately leads to being someone who is abiding in Jesus, making disciples, and enjoying life together. That's our mission and purpose: to accomplish those three things. We only find it in the person of wisdom, the perfect embodiment of wisdom, Jesus. So, wisdom starts in relationship with the Lord, it's found in walking with the Lord, and it leads to being transformed by the Lord.
The question I have for you is…_Who's informing your life?_ What is informing your life? What have you based everything on, going, "I'm going to make every decision, every relationship, every hour and minute of my life… I'm going to base it on one thing: the person and work of Jesus, relationship with him, walking with him, and becoming transformed by him."
My fear is that in 2025, there are so many things to give your life to. There are so many distractions, so many even good things that are gifts from the Lord, but we take them, and we can make them immediate, and we can make them the treasures of our hearts. We go, "Man, I'm a little distracted, and I'm kind of starting to give my life to this other thing." The danger here is that we look up at some point in our lives, and we've packed a bunch of things that aren't bad things, but they're worthless.
We just go, "Man, I've given my life to collect all this stuff." I can think on a certain day and go, "No, no, no. If I just have _this_… If I need anything to survive today, it's _this_. It's a relationship. It's possessions. It's my job. It's sports. It's a hobby." It's found in none of those things. Wisdom is not found in a degree. It's not found in a relationship. It's not found in a possession. It's found in the person of Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Do you know him? Do you have a relationship with him?
Jesus says in Luke 9, **"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?"**
Whatever it is, it's not worth your soul. There's wisdom found in relationship, in walking with and being transformed by the person and work of Jesus. If you don't know him, would you stop and have a conversation with one of us or with your parents this morning? He is the purpose of our lives. He's the main point of our journey. So, let's go abide in Jesus, make disciples, and enjoy life together. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for the opportunity we have this morning to be reminded of your Word, that we get to do this with friends and family in the room. What a gift that is. Would you help us see you more clearly? Would you help us see your Son, the perfect embodiment and fulfillment of all wisdom, who transforms our lives through relationship with him? Thank you for being God who loves us and is in relationship with us, for offering your Son to die on a cross that we may trust in him, know him, and spend eternity with you forever. What a gift that is. We pray all these things in your name, amen.